Living dinosaurs: When did modern birds evolve?

Late Cretaceous birdwatchers would have been spoiled for choice of flying oddities – but some of the animals in the sky would have looked familiar

Had birdwatchers been around during the late Cretaceous (100 to 65 million years ago) they would have been bowled over by bewildering variety. "There were birds with all kinds of teeth and others with no teeth, birds with long bony tails and others with short tails, birds with big claws and others with no claws. There was an enormous range of body plans that exceeds what we see among modern birds," says Chiappe. A group called the Enantiornithes, meaning "opposite birds", became particularly diverse and common.

Also flitting around among this menagerie were the modern birds (neornithines) with their lightweight skeletons, flexible wings, toothless beaks and greatly reduced tails.

A "molecular clock" analysis of ...

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